Nutrition plays a significant role in your dogs health. I say this often to everyone, as it is a personal and professional mantra of mine. Not only will your dog's diet determine how healthy they are in the long run, but it will also determine their quality of life and length of life once they've reached those senior years. If you want many long and happy years with a healthy and strong dog, focus on providing a clean and nutritious species appropriate diet. Nutrition is so important because food is something dogs consume every single day, often multiple times a day. Food provides nutrients to the body, enzymes, energy and everything needed for the body to function properly. Without food, important body functions and processes cannot proceed and an animal cannot survive. Food, like water, is life. On that same note, it is important to understand that quality of food goes hand in hand with quality of life. If one chooses to feed a very low quality, low protein, high grain diet where the food has been cooked to the point of being empty of nutrient (which results in manufactures having to add tons of vitamins and minerals), this will ultimately reflect in the dog. Cooking food kills living enzymes and nutrients, ultimately providing a dog with "dead" nutrition. Since the cooking process kills and destroys nutrients, vitamins and minerals must be added to the formula so that the dog can survive on the food. To put this in perspective, imagine feeding your dog a bowl of nutrient-less rice mixed with a multivitamin tablet every single meal. That type of diet does not promote health, vitality and well being.

Eating poor quality kibble is the equivalent of us eating very unhealthy fast food every single meal of every single day. Eating such a terribly unhealthy diet will make us feel miserable, become overweight, and expose us to illness and disease. Furthermore, these foods (both fast food and poor quality kibble) are often laced with preservatives, chemicals, artificial colors and flavors, sugar (sugar facilitates the growth of tumors) and junk that collects in the body's cells. This accumulation of trash in the body will predispose dogs to cancer, disease and illness. When we provide our dogs with a living, species appropriate diet we can offer them a clean, pure source of food that will leave no toxic residue in the body. A pure, living diet will provide the body with energy and nutrition, nothing more and nothing less, to result in smaller stool and a stronger body. Smaller stool volume means that the food being consumed is being used by the body, and there is no useless junk going in and coming right out of the body. It is worth while to compare the stool of a (poor quality) kibble fed dog to that of a raw fed dog, the difference in volume and smell is quite extreme. Determining which diet to feed isn't always easy with the wide variety of pet foods available on the market, but my hope is that my list of recommendations which are linked to articles describing those types of diets will help you make the right choice for your furry family members!

First and foremost, a RAW FOOD DIET for dogs is the most species-appropriate diet for our dogs. A raw food diet is as pure and clean as food can come, and is full of living enzymes and nutrients to promote health and longevity.

The next best thing is a raw homemade diet, which involves only lightly cooking the meat and using raw fruit and vegetables along with a raw food supplement to boost nutrition.

A homemade diet for dogs is the next best option, providing either all cooked or half cooked half raw food combined together with a whole food supplement. Fresh, whole food ingredients are used in this type of diet, and much of the nutrition is not killed. Interested in feeding a homemade diet? Check out this free sample recipe!

This article is very interesting. I have been hearing more & more about raw diets. It's getting harder & harder to find healthy dog food for our shepherds!

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Bobby Lynn Godden

8/18/2013 10:39:37 pm

Hi I am taking the fat from a ham prior to boiling it. Can i give the raw fat to my dog.

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Wendy

6/25/2013 01:19:52 am

I found that Nature's Instinct has raw food. I will be checking that out today. I have been using Nature's Recipe Grain Free for my other dogs, so when I got our new GSD I continued using it with her. But I am thinking that something in that is contributing to the GSD's hot spot that just will NOT go away. She came with it, and 3 months of med's are not making any difference. :0( I used the coconut oil on it for awhile, but vet said to stop for just a bit to see if the med's could help.

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Julika Ludwigs-Christoff

1/22/2014 03:23:56 am

I cook for my dogs since 14 years. They are happy and very healthy German Sheperds

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Salam

5/25/2014 02:30:20 am

I have been debating this topic for some time. My German Shepherd is five years old and I feel like the quality of dry food is going down hill. My concern is that it will change the temperament of my boy. I cook for him now, bison, London broil, tons of veggies and he loves fruits. But he knows I am in control and I feed him, I just worry that will change with a raw diet. Any feedback would be appreciated or advice. Thanks!

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